Hand cutters with safety features for protection are well known and have been present in the market for many years. The need for cutting tools with the highest possible protection for the user is increasing in today's market, where many goods are shipped throughout the world for which the packaging needs to be removed safely and swiftly. Solutions range from low cost devices with integrated blades to more sophisticated hand cutters with replaceable blades. Several means are known for providing safe handling of the cutters, both for when these are in use, as well as when they are not in use. One common solution is to stow the cutting blade within the housing of the cutting tool when it is not in use. The blade is extended out of the housing for cutting before it is used and is stowed away into the housing after its use.
Solutions for such cutting tools include an actuator for extending the blade out of the housing, which is then in an extended position until a cut is made. As soon as pressure is applied during the cutting action the blade and the actuator are decoupled and the blade is then automatically retracted into the housing as soon as the cutting action is finished.
One issue with currently known knives is to provide an extended position in which the blade is not accidentally retracted due to a quick motion or jolt created by the user. Some such knives automatically retract before they were used for cutting due to wear of the parts used in the hand cutter. In addition, when such knives are used for a long period of time, the blade may become stuck in an intermediate position, causing the whole mechanism to fail.
Another common problem with such knives is that due to the complexity required for providing a reliable mechanism for automatically retracting the blade, the distance the blade can be extended is usually limited to the displacement of the trigger mechanism. For example, US 2016/0167239 A1 discloses a hand cutter wherein a slider button assembly is connected to a blade carriage assembly via a single pinion gear. Thus, when the user moves the slider button assembly in one direction by a certain distance, the blade carriage assembly and the blade are moved by the same distance in the opposite direction. Not only is it counter-intuitive that the blade moves forward when the slider button moves backward, but this also requires users to make large movements with the thumb in order to extend the blade by a useful distance when making a deep cut. EP 2 979 828 A1 shows a hand cutter wherein an actuator assembly is connected to a blade assembly via a gear assembly comprising several pinion gears. However in this case the movement of the actuator is in a perpendicular direction to the movement of the blade assembly.